


A Little Conversation

by Innin



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Blow Jobs, Character Study, F/M, Hurt/Comfort and Smut, Loyalty Kink, Military Backstory, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:17:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6982510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innin/pseuds/Innin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sigrun and Emil are trapped in a room together, find ways to pass the time, and help some old wounds along to healing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Conversation

**Author's Note:**

> Happens in the same continuity as [Adrenaline Might Be Involved](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6366352), and alludes to it in a few places, but you don't need to have read it to understand this story. It also comes with illustrations! The wonderful Jureeya drew [this](http://jureeya.tumblr.com/post/143131916678/143023404413edit-lol-forgot-to-put-in-the-cut-whoopsmor) before the story ever reached that point, and [this one](http://jureeya.tumblr.com/post/143805934603/lemme-talk-aboutmy-other-otp-nsfw-version-below) is alluded to. (Needless to say, both of these are NSFW). Thank you, Ju! 
> 
> This fic comes with some warnings for potentially upsetting or triggering content, too - abuse and bullying of several kinds (join the Cleansers, they said. Cleanser training will be fun, they said) as well as injury, implied suicide, and OC character deaths.

What happens in Cleanser training stays in Cleanser training, except when it doesn't. Except when Emil and Sigrun lie stretched out naked on their uniform coats facing each other in the afterglow of their second time together. It's nice, at least until his Captain inquires in a soft - but by no means uncertain - tone what he has done and what he hasn't. He's tempted to tell Sigrun everything - and make it sound impressive if he can, to avoid questions.

But this - the lying naked and comfortable - it's firmly in his hasn'ts. 

This time they didn't even have to take down a giant, they just needed to find a way to pass the time. Given the circumstances they're safe and sound and cozy in the top floor of an old house, and they even have an ancient fireplace with one of those fancy metal scrollwork things, an un-blocked chimney, and enough old wood for a fire to light the room. Dusk is falling outside, visible through the hole in the ceiling, but it'll be a while before the others send out Lalli to find them. 

When they do, the smoke out the chimney should show him the way without too much fuss, and come morning he can bring Mikkel to help clear away the rubble that's blocking the only door from the room. Other than that, there's no risk at discovery or interruption. It's just that half the ceiling came down just the moment after they'd broken in, in chunks too big for them to move alone - only to find that the books they were after must be elsewhere in the house. Such are the dangers of 90-year-old ruins, or older. It's not like Denmark sprang from the earth on the day of the apocalypse. But Sigrun's not worried about the rest of the building collapsing on them, so Emil isn't, either. At least not now that he's done freaking out. A little. 

"Hey. I asked a question." Sigrun's words call him out of his ruminations, her smile twitches in a flicker of fire, and it's like her hair is catching all that light for itself. It's unfair, really. Distracting, too. She's glowing. 

"I… no, I've never done this. I mean…" Admitting it gets a little easier while they're this close, but not by much. It's nice, but he's not used to it. Her body is in the shadow his is casting, but there's nothing left to the imagination, and he's had the chance for a good long look earlier, anyway. He still feels his cheeks burn at that - she'd wanted him above her, he got carried away, couldn't finish her before he had to pull away as they'd agreed on, to avoid another mess that'd lead to another laundry bucket incident - and then Sigrun's legs were on his shoulders while he still stammered apologies, and she probably could have strangled him with her thighs if she'd wanted to. 

"You mean the airfield was your first time. Yeah, I kinda figured that afterwards, you looked so star-struck there wasn't a lot of doubt over it. And hey, you got me, so that's a pretty sweet deal for both of us." She reaches over and runs a hand through his hair, flicks his bangs back into shape. It's casual, comforting, like the whole thing. Her hands are warm. 

"Should I… I'm sorry, I should have said something. I thought it might - I didn't want to spoil the moment." 

Sigrun snorts - amused, not derisive. "There wasn't really a moment to spoil. Adrenaline does that - well, does it to me, but I'd have lived without it. One rule if you want to keep doing this with me, okay? And that's not one of the optional ones, it's one of the ones I'll kick your pretty-guy ass for if you don't follow it. If you don't want it, any part of it, if you have any kind of doubt that you can't get rid of easy before we get it on, or while we're at it - _you talk to me_. You let me know. Understood?"

There's the sort of sharpness in her eyes now that lets Emil know that she means business, and he evades, fixing his eyes somewhere near the pulse point of her throat where he'd left a faint teeth-mark at her urging, earlier. Not so hard it'd bruise, but enough to remind her for a bit. He'd blushed like an idiot when she told him to do it, but he'd liked the idea that once they've put their clothes back on, it wouldn't quite be over and behind them. There are more bites like that, at the top of her breasts. But there's also her hand, moving down to cup his cheek and turning his head until he can't avoid looking at her any longer. 

"Emil. Anyone ever told you you can say no?" 

"Well, yeah, sure. Just -" 

Damn, how does he put it? He knows the theory, never really got to implement it in practice. It's easy to just go along, and he wonders if the same instinct kicked in with her as the one that did in Cleanser training. He did some things there he didn't enjoy, not that he was given that much choice if he wanted to save face. It is not the same as his time with Sigrun after the giant hunt, or the sex they've just had. 

That was all elation, he'd wanted that - rather, he hopes he wanted it, now that he's second-guessing already. It's not that he didn't want to be with her. _Sigrun_ is not the problem, except now that she's insisting on making him talk, and he wonders how his right to say no fits with that. But even so he figures she'll work it out sooner or later - another time, some different idea of hers, because she's nothing if not creative - or maybe not all that creative and this is all par for the course, he just doesn't have the experience yet - and he'll mess it up somehow, and she'll know. 

Or guess, at least, if she hasn't already. 

His thoughts are rambling, and he knows why, pulls back out of them, meets her eyes again. Her brows knit, now, and he twists to look behind him, because all the cool fury on her face screams _troll_.

No troll. Shit. 

"You know what I'd really like to do now? Shank that bastard." 

"What? No! It wasn't _that_ bad!" His voice comes out in something that is closer to hitching than he'd like to admit; Emil's throat is tight and when he manages to suck in some air through his open mouth there's a new inrush of her taste that's still on his lips, smeared over his chin, and that's a wholly new level of messy eating that he hadn't even considered until half an hour or so ago when she was talking him through how she wanted it done, praising him, and getting more and more breathless. Not so far from what he's had to do, and worlds away at the same time. 

And that'd been okay. More than okay.

"'Sides, they put you behind bars for multiple murder. They put you behind bars for less than that. Probably in Norway, too. And you'd lose your command, and…" And it's not worth that.

"Multiple? Multiple. Multiple." She repeats the word like she's never really heard it before, or there's something lost in translation between Swedish and Norwegian. Emil doesn't think so, and he doesn't like the look on her face. There's fury there still, but there's also a sort of recognition that this isn't something she can kill, and she hates it enough for her hand to tighten on the side of his face until he flinches and she lets go. 

Emil moves his jaw to make sure he still can. _That_ is far too familiar for comfort, and he takes a moment to settle, half-aware of Sigrun holding herself back until he's able to focus again.

"Yeah. Three. Sometimes four of them."

"I'm sorry," Sigrun says, low, the moment his eyes come back to her, and for some reason that rattles him more than her moment of fury. Her hands are still bunched up into useless fists. "You know what, I'm calling this off until further notice. If you can't talk about it, I can't keep doing this. Too much risk. If I manage to spook you any more when we get wild together then where would we be? I'm your Captain, and no matter what else we get up to, I look out for you. And I can't go into the field without my right-hand warrior trusting me. It's how this works." 

Sigrun sits up, finds her bra and starts pulling it on, muttering when her fingers slip on the hooks. Emil has never really been up close with any of those things, and he's not sure what he means to do when he reaches for her hand; in the end he just puts his fingers over hers to stay them, feeling one long scar across the back of her hand. 

"Okay, so you want to talk now or what? I didn't know we had to be naked for that."

"Not… not really, I guess not." Damn all the stammering. Just earlier he'd thought that he was getting a little better and more comfortable at this, at taking charge a little, instead of being a needy, resentful boy. 

She shrugs off one of the straps, then the other. "But might as well, if that makes it better. I don't care." Sigrun lets the bra fall back onto the stone-dust ground, stretches back out, her head pillowed on her shoulder so it leaves the other side of her neck exposed. Her muscles are still tense, he can see them stretch taut under her skin. 

"Scoot over here, kid. I'll tell you upfront, I'm not that great at feelings-talks, so you're going to have to help me along here, especially since I don't really know what the _dritt_ happened with you, and I don't wanna guess at it. Not with this stuff." 

He pulls his jacket closer, wincing when he lies down and there's fragments of rubble underneath that have spilled into the room. 

"It's not that bad." 

Sigrun snorts again. This time there's enough derision in that noise to make Emil wince for being caught in the lie, but she waits for him to go on with an eyebrow cocked.

"Cleanser training, that's what happened. They rough you up there, and heckle you if you give them any kind of leverage, to see if you're worth anything, and if they think you're not they keep at it until you quit."

"That's not how the Army does it at home." Her frown says as much, but he figures it has to be true in a backwater fjord place like Dalsnes where they all know each other instead of getting thrown together in a training center from all the different Swedish towns of the Known World to fight for spots on the Cleanser teams. Mora alone has almost as many people as the whole of Norway. It'd have to be different for her - nicer. There's no space for that sort of competition or resentment, and he likes the idea much better than the Swedish way. Or would, if it didn't involve a bunch of half-wild Norwegians without proper civilization.

Sigrun isn't half-bad, though. "How do they do it there?" 

She shrugs. "Talk things out, with our fists if we have to. The thing you learn first: you can't trust a backstabber to have your back when things get ugly, so you don't. You face things head-on and figure out what the people you work with are made of. Who's loyal and who isn't. You wouldn't let a troll get behind you, right? Not someone who'd want hurt on you either, it's too easy for them to get to you that way. And if you can't settle it yourselves and have a drink and a laugh over it afterward, you take it to a superior. Zero-tolerance like that, you learn to keep honest, except if you're the lowest kind of filth, and they don't get away with what they do. At least they haven't, long as I can remember."

 _Filth._

Emil can't help it, he flinches and draws his legs up. He'd like to crawl into some corner, but doesn't. 

She's already noticed anyway, with the way her eyes narrow, and he stares somewhere, anywhere, so he won't need to meet them again. The ceiling. The ceiling's good, and the sky darkening outside. Then there's Sigrun shuffling around close to him while he's not looking, probably searching for her underwear again to get dressed so she's ready when Lalli shows up and manages to peer into the room through some crack or other in the blocked entryway, if there are any. Emil hopes he won't try the roof.

He just hopes that'll be soon, and he doesn't even care that he's going to have a lot of explaining to do about why he's not wearing any clothes. He's ruined it. Sigrun thinks he's filth, and she can't go book-hunting without him, she's said as much. He doesn't expect her to compromise. Once they're back, she might as well issue the order to turn the tank around and drive to the bridge to wait for a transport back to the base for quarantine, with all of the handful of books they've salvaged. 

Money, fame, all that… it's all down the drain and it's his fault, he thinks dejectedly. His parents and his future were the main things he'd let Torbjörn talk him into going along with the mission for - but for the moment it's stopped mattering; it's as buried under a crushing sense of miserable, personal defeat as the door out of the room is buried under rubble.

Sigrun of all people is gonna be his new mortal enemy now. At least, as mortal enemies go, Reynir was less dangerous than a soggy bread roll.

He thinks dimly and with a bitter laugh that the next time he meets a tall redhead he should run the other way, if he still has a chance. If he doesn't end up being punished for being terrible, himself. Well, it'd only be fair, for filth like Cadet Västerström. He might as well start digging his own grave.

Sigrun's shuffling has gone silent, next he notices. Something in the fire is crackling; it's burning down, but still steady enough to keep the room warm. Other than that the only sound is their breathing.

He'd rather face down a troll naked as he is, than do any more of this. His left eye twitches, and he rubs at it, irritated. Even after that, it takes him a stupidly long time to work up the courage to even stop staring at the ceiling and glance over at Sigrun. 

More exactly, at Sigrun's naked back. 

There is firelight picking out a snarl of scar tissue from across her left shoulder blade to her spine that looks like something enormous took a bite out of her. It half-destroyed a tattoo in the middle between her shoulders, and Emil can't quite make out what it used to be - maybe some sort of heart-shaped leaf picked out in black against her skin - and what it might mean to Sigrun is lost to him. But apart from that, compared to the rest of her body where she has tons of scars, many of them small and almost casual to show for her reputation as a fearsome Hunter Captain, she looks like she's practising what she preached to him and keeps her back covered.

It doesn't occur to him what that means for what he's seeing until he hears Sigrun huff. That's when his heart plunges into his stomach, and his first urge is to hide his flaming face. She glances at him over her shoulder, and the muscles under those scars ripple. "It's pretty cool, huh? That was my first giant, a part of it that had a bear head in it. It mauled me before I even noticed it was there." 

There's something vixenish in her face as she recounts her adventure and how she took it down. Emil's stomach feels queasy, and only settles a little when she turns more serious again. "So tell me what you're getting from this, pretty boy. You _are_ getting this, right?" 

"We're not mortal enemies, and I'm terrible," he says. 

"I wouldn't turn my back on a mortal enemy, so we're not mortal enemies. I need you to cut that crap and learn to listen - and not insult my people skills, more like. If I thought you were the type of filth I was talking about, I wouldn't be here with you, and I sure wouldn't be doing naked almost-cuddling with you. I have some standards for that sort of thing. Understood?"

"Yeah. Understood." It comes out in a mumble, he can't really help it. The embarrassment is sitting like a chunk of rock in his chest that shifts only a little when Sigrun turns back around to him, slings an arm over his shoulders, tips his chin up with the other. That she won't let him get away with it makes it simultaneously better, and worse. He's not great at facing things, at least not when there's an option to run. And then - lately, most of his running has been to Sigrun, not from her. 

"Okay. You're still looking like there's a raincloud hanging over your head, wanna tell me why? If it needs repeating, I don't think you're filth. That's reserved for the people who hurt you." 

"Thanks, I… thanks." Emil feels a smile coming on, thin as it is. It's the kind of relief that indicates a break in the danger, not an end of it, yet. He's the one who's going to have to put a stop to it, this time, and the only way he can think of is coming clean about what happened to him. "Though really, it was not as bad as I made it sound. I'm the one who provoked it. I mean it." 

"Doesn't matter. I don't care. I don't give a _damn_. You didn't make them act, they did that all on their own." Sigrun's eyes are narrowing again, her voice stays ever so slightly on the edge of unforgiving. 

Weirdly, it's making him feel defensive of them, and he hates the feeling. "I lied to them, okay? I was accepted into the Academy and was the - the weird fat brainy arrogant rich newbie who couldn't even run a lap around the field without a break that everyone picked on, so I made up all sorts of stories to fit in and get ahead. I really wanted to. It didn't really work, they still didn't like me. And I didn't know there were a bunch of Östersund kids there. Of course they knew my family had lost our fortune; it was the talk of the town, and they let me carry on and brag like a dumb kid until they cornered me and there was no backing out without them telling, and the others liking me even less."

Sigrun rolls her eyes, sighing, and for a moment Emil is right back there again, but she surprises him by what she says. "So - a lot like you did on the team at first. But you're not a dumb kid, Emil. I don't care what Mikkel says your school records say, there's dumb and there's _dumb_. Sure, honesty is good, but I don't see the harm if you try to live up to boasting in a place where it won't get others in danger if you can't. It's more like promises that way. Remember when I said I could drive? It's like that. Doesn't always work."

"Uhh. Y-yeah, I remember. I don't know if that's… really what it was like. I really just wanted to look good to people, I didn't care if it was true. Even if some of it was."

"Right. Different story, then - I have a lot of those. You spend twenty years hunting, you'll have plenty yourself. I quit school when I was thirteen, it got me down and angry more than a bit myself, so I didn't have any patience for it any longer and I wanted to go kill myself some trolls already. I made some dumb mistakes, too. You see this one?" Sigrun lifts her leg; there's the scar he's noticed their first time together already, from her knee all the way up, and in this light it's not just a pale strip of flesh, it's a silvery zig-zag that kind of shimmers. 

She nods her head when he reaches out, nudges him in the chest with her toes, but lets him touch. It's not the tough scar tissue he expected. It's softer, almost like all those smaller stripe-marks up on her hips and on the inside of her thighs that he noticed earlier. It's weird, thinking they have some of those in common when he still has to earn any battle scars. 

"I like it."

"Dumb mistake, but not a _dumb_ one. Not the liking it, just the getting it. We were out after a storm, patching up the fences across the road in the pass. Rookie work, under supervision. This was way early, I was probably younger than you - yeah, I must have been fourteen, fifteen at most, I hadn't even finished up my training, and I'd never faced anything larger than a scrawny dog beast until then; we kept it easy and manageable at first. You break people in, you don't break them to pieces." 

That's new. And means, probably, that either she sees more in him than there is, or she's terrible at her job, with the situations she's put him in so far. Not just the nests that he's had to explore on his own, also the standing guard alone - they used to do that to him while they went out on a Cleansing stint and did all the fire-related work. But either way, Emil can't get enough of watching her face while she talks. Sigrun is reflective - unusual for her, and he likes the openness of that, even though he can't imagine Sigrun as a young recruit, not even one his own age. When he tries she's the same Sigrun, just a bit shorter and rounder in the face, and it feels like that isn't what she would have been like at all. She wasn't always as she's now, can't have been. There's things that change people, and hunting is one of them, he's learned that much from experience. 

"... so when this moose beast bowled over our scouts and came charging down the road at us - I backed away right into the coil of razor wire I'd been stringing, and managed to tangle myself up like an idiot. It sliced right through my pants and into my leg and stuck there until they cut me out. At least I knew not to thrash around too much, so I managed not to slice myself up further and bleed to death on the spot." 

Emil winces. It reminds him of his first time with a flamethrower and the sabotaged fuel tank, although at least they were wearing fireproof gear and it didn't leave a scar. "And the moose got you?" 

Sigrun shakes her head. "Just the wire. If the beast had gotten as far as that I'd be a pile of ashes now, at least if they'd found enough of me to burn. Þórveig cast us some runes - she was a quick one with that, but we wouldn't even have needed it. Sniper took it down. End of story. I was the only one who got as badly hurt, our scouts got away with some bruises." Her lips quirk. "Some jerk even changed one of our drinking songs to make it about my battle with the razor wire, and my uncle Rufus sang it while he patched me up, just to tease me." 

Emil mulls over what she just said. "So what's the point of that story?" 

"The point is: Sometimes things backfire, and you can do hurt to yourself without meaning to. Sometimes you don't realize it until it's happened, but what I'm trying to say is I wouldn't have stepped into that wire coil if there hadn't been a huge monster moose coming to gore us, and I hadn't learned that one of the rules was to never ever take your eyes off an attacker. And the way it sounds you dealt with a whole lot more moose beasts getting way closer to you and without any support around. The only thing you did was string the wire for defense, do you get me?" 

"Maybe? Yeah, I think I do. It's weird you'd say that, though. One of the instructors told me I shouldn't poke a troll's nest if I didn't want to get hurt, after I worked up the courage to talk to her. That was even before..." 

Sigrun's face scrunches up unpleasantly. "Okay, then she's a dumb jerk. That's not the thing that happened to you! Sure you shouldn't bother a troll's nest if you can't deal with it, but trolls are out there and they happen to people even if you leave their nests alone. That's why we got walls and fences and all that. Anyone worth her position should know that, so they should really put someone better there. I don't know how to say it any clearer than that, Emil, but there's nothing to my mind that merits hurting people except if they hurt you first and you're defending yourself. There's no honour in that sort of thing, and no use either. Riling them up, sure, the way I do with Mikkel when his food is terrible, or the death threats so he'd give me the damn laundry bucket and not find out that my everything was full of your spooge. But I know there's not candles or poison in the sludge he cooks us, and he knows I won't strangle him with my underpants in his sleep. I could if I had to, but I won't. So are you gonna finally tell me what they did, or are you gonna keep acting weird about it and we're gonna call this off?"

He knows he doesn't want to. He likes Sigrun, he likes - he likes the sex, he realizes, he likes that she's so matter-of-fact about it. That she helps him along, not just in the field, mostly without making him feel like an idiot. 

And he doesn't want his past festering between them even if Sigrun decides enough is enough, after all. 

" _All right, I'm telling!_ It's just… the longer I was there, the worse the heckling got. I was trying, because my parents asked. I was trying a lot. But even when I got in shape and got a bit better, all I got was people screwing with my gear in ways that'd get me in trouble, and not just with the instructors. It wasn't fair! I got set on fire once, another time we went out on spring purge reconnaissance and they'd switched my fuel, so I ended up watering the saplings I was supposed to burn, they talked about me behind my back all the time, they poured glue down the barrel of my gun the night before we were graded for shooting." He doesn't even mention all the dawn guards he was made to take alone, or all the times he got left behind alone at camp, and that had been after training was over and he had graduated from the Academy, just barely so he'd still be accepted into a Cleanser squad instead of rotting away behind a desk. He still remembers scanning the result lists in dismay, and finding his ID number close to the cutoff margin in all four exams - physical was his highest, practical followed, psychological next, and theoretical by far the weakest. But it stopped mattering the moment that he'd passed. He'd be out of there. No more bullying. He'd thought.

"But that's not the reason you are acting so damn weird, and we both know it. The heckling sucks for you, and I'd sure like to wring a few necks for letting it happen, but I've seen enough of you to know it's something you can deal with, even if you do it badly, so I'm really not that interested in hearing you stall. Get to the juicy bits so we can figure out how to get rid of them." 

Emil feels his lips press together. That tone Sigrun is using with him now is the one he's learned to like least of all of them; it's the one when she's getting impatient or annoyed with someone on the team - anything from Mikkel taking too long with food, to Tuuri being more sneaky or clever than is good for her, to Reynir being a nuisance, to Lalli having a particularly off day, or when Emil broke that book in the first spot they hit together. And right now there is no doubt about whom she's using it with, and he can't help snapping back. 

Belated, because he's overthinking again, but it's snapping anyway. "You're kind of rude sometimes."

He gets a stare in return. "Only when I have to be. It's the same as what I just said about Mikkel, it's a load of bullshit and blustering, and it's fair game if it gets the job done. It's a shortcut to the thing you're trying to avoid talking about, or do you want me to smack your face again so you stop freaking out?"

Emil blinks, then quickly shakes his head. It didn't feel like freaking out, but he doesn't want to argue with Sigrun any longer, and she has a lot of good sides that he didn't mention. Talking that out would take more time than he's willing to give it - Sigrun of all people doesn't need to have her ego stroked.

"I'm not freaking out. And you're not _only_ rude - you're also all sorts of awesome, but sometimes it's really hard to keep up with you. It's nice of you to want to help me, but it's not fun if you have to remember stuff you'd rather forget about."

What happens in Cleanser training stays in Cleanser training, after all, and now even more than before he's on the surest path to breaking that rule. 

If his words bother Sigrun in any way - he thinks they might, but with her face so pinched already there's no way to be sure. "Thing is, Emil… you aren't forgetting about it anytime soon, are you? You don't just scrub the ugly part of life out of your brain, or I'd have forgotten a lot of names by now. People I couldn't save, or worse than that. Remember Þórveig? Our mage for a while. Icelandic, came to Dalsnes as a teacher when we had this outbreak of mages of our own, enough that some people believed Freya and Odin themselves dropped by to mess with us; she stayed for one of our senior captains and came out on missions on the same team I was on when I'd finally turned sixteen and was allowed further than the edge of town. And you know how it is with Icelanders, you'll be lucky hitting anybody who's immune if you throw rocks at a crowd of them, just as with Freckles."

"She was infected? I'm sorry," Emil says. He may not believe in magic, but that doesn't mean he wants bad things for people who do, and Sigrun sounds like she was fond of the woman, and keeps on talking without paying him a lot of mind for the moment.

"We got cut off in the Silent World after a hunt, had to camp out for a night before we could make our way back into town. No big deal, it happens. She had runes and her other magic stuff - she wasn't defenseless, but if you're letting your guard down at dinner and there's a spitter troll that's managed to drag itself close enough through the rain without us hearing - well, the moment the cats started freaking out it was too late. It knew to go for her, somehow."

"And she got the Rash?"

"It got her all right." Sigrun's voice goes nonchalant, like that'd fool him about how terrible it probably was. "She was trying to hang on and ward it off somehow, after the fact, but this isn't… something you can fix. It spat her right in the face, the cats were positive, she was positive, said she felt it creeping into her mind, and you trust a mage when she talks that sort of stuff. We didn't even have a medic with us to make it easier on her, but Captain ordered to get her back into town anyway, for some pointless torture while they'd try and save her somehow. She didn't want to. I snuck my gun into her tent that night. If my mother hadn't just made General and Trond hadn't pulled some strings, I probably would have been court-martialled into Hel and back for letting her make a quick end - still didn't get off easy, but I'd be doing it again without blinking. And ask me about Norid and Marten and the ambush some other time, or Hildny while I was doing Navy service, before we had to beach our first sea-beast and I figured it wasn't for me. She was my best friend's mother, best of our ship captains at the time. But this is about you first - so you go first. Confession time, Emil."

"You already went first." But he takes a breath, and presses on before his voice can fail him or Sigrun can tell him to stop being a smartass. "It's nowhere like yours. Nobody died. No blood, not even bruises. I just had to… suck off some people. The Östersund kids. That's it. I didn't want them to rat me out with the stuff they knew, when everyone hated me already anyway. Going along with what they wanted was the best idea I had." He mumbles. "Best option, too. I thought."

He's not even trying not to sound dejected, because he knows it won't work, and he can't help his face heating about the memory. Memories, really. All the disgust at himself is back. He'd hoped to leave that behind, not drag it out into the light for Sigrun to see, but there's no changing that now. 

"Ew. Let me guess - they didn't care, and it got worse." He isn't even sure what Sigrun is thinking or feeling right now - she's furious again, that's easy, but the rest of it? Disappointed with him, probably, as if he had had any choice in the matter that wasn't taken from him. As if he hadn't spent every damn time afterward trying to breathe down revulsion and shame for doing it, and for thinking he'd brought it on himself, and muffled all of the snot and tears into his bunk pillow. 

But he can't really tell her that, can he? Or about the jeers that sometimes still keep his ears ringing on a bad day. _Open wide, little piggy_ and all that, while they pinched his nose shut and wouldn't even let him turn his head out of the shower stinging him hard in the face. 

As if they'd have let him say no. As if it could have gotten that much worse.

He isn't going to cry. He isn't, but he rubs at his eye just to make sure. He'd learned how to keep in the tears eventually, just like he'd learned where to put his tongue to keep them from pushing in deep just to make him retch, when apathy didn't take over and he just let them. Stoicism - if his attempts at it even deserved that word - used to be all the armour that looking impeccable became once the Academy was behind him.

Sigrun cocks her damn head at him. "That's a yes if I ever saw one."

"Actually it didn't! As long as I showed up in the showers at night and did what they told me to, it stayed about the same. They could have made it worse! And you don't have to look at me like that, you've never been there, you've probably always only been one of the popular kids who was great at her job!" 

"You wanna be careful with where you're going with that," she snaps back. "I already told you how it's done at home. The only people I messed with in training were the ones who could look me in the eye, and they messed right back at me while we figured stuff out. We got this family catchphrase, and maybe I'm kind of an ass like it says, but that doesn't mean - _that_. I never - " She jabs her hand at him, and he gets what she means. Not him, but the stuff that happened to him. He thinks.

Emil breathes out in a big sigh; he's tired of all of this, suddenly. It's a mistake she talked him into making, and now that it's out in the open it's getting clearer that she has no idea what to do with the new information. Somehow seeing Sigrun out of her depth is discomfiting, it makes everything ten times worse. This is the Captain who doesn't mind running into a troll's nest to save his life, and he'd _like_ her to be the right person to help with this, too. He went through all the effort to tell her, and now he doesn't even get what he'd hoped for - she sounds like she wants to fix him, somewhere in that anger, but intention doesn't mean anything if she can't put any weight behind it. 

It's been comfortable with her so far - it probably won't be comfortable with her any longer.

"So, what now?" At least Sigrun's finally making an effort to keep her voice in check. "I told you you had to help me along with this. I'm not a head-doctor or a shrink, and that time my dad tried to make me talk to one I trashed some potted plants worth three months' salary, so that wasn't smart. She could have told me they were some super-rare orchid things that got imported straight from Iceland _before_ I went for her desk and cleared them off. So?" 

Whatever brought Sigrun to that point he's afraid to ask - but her trashing a desk? Emil can imagine it, although he feels sorry for the plants. His mother had been fond of Icelandic hothouse orchids, too. He doubts the ones Sigrun destroyed were even remotely as valuable as theirs, though. They'd been luxuries that even some of Sweden's ministers had ooh-aah'd about during the dinners his parents hosted, and Emil had liked the orchid room. They'd been some of the first things to go to try and stave off the inevitable, along with his horses and his father's cars. 

"I don't know. Maybe it's like you said and it's best we call this off. I shouldn't have told you. It's not like - it's not like it makes me any different. I was like this when we started, now you just know what's behind it. And now you'll treat me like I have - I don't know. I won't be the same Emil to you, and the rest of them will notice and ask, and I could just as well spill it to them when we get back! _Thanks_ , Sigrun!"

"Hey! _Calm down_ , will you?! You're getting way ahead of yourself there, buddy; like Hel I'm going to!!" Sigrun is up and in his space in a matter of seconds. Even though they're both naked she's still intimidating, but somehow he manages to grasp her wrists before her palms paff down on his cheeks. He's learned to expect that maneuver since the first time, in the death room. 

Sigrun takes it in stride and lets her hands sink to her thighs, pulling Emil's along like he isn't the one who just tried to get some control over the situation. And she soldiers on, pulling her hands free and putting them on his shoulders instead. With the way Sigrun is leaning above him, he's staring straight at the tattoo on her upper arm, apple trees growing around a sword, and for a moment he's tempted to shrug them off, but there's a look on her face now that he's learned to be wary of. 

Sigrun is having an idea.

"You know what we'll do when we get back? Make a list of names. You have friends now, Emil, and they have friends who'll be able to dish out a little payback for those four pieces of troll shit. If they're into making others small, they better get used to that themselves. I dunno what they're doing now, but they shouldn't be trusted with teammates, and subordinates would be worse. Definitely not give them any sort of power, ever. Trond could get them reassigned to shovelling reindeer crap somewhere up north."

It's an idea that makes Emil snort to think of. Sven, Lucas, Einar and especially Rikard - the worst of the four - would hate that more than life itself, but the elation makes way for the feeling of a cold fist grabbing his stomach and squeezing far too quickly. 

"But those four being demoted at the same time for punishment - they'd know who'd be at the root of that! And then I'd have to deal with them again." Emil curls his fingers against his palm to keep his hands still. His face flames up again when he adds, more quietly, "I don't want that. I'd just like to move on." 

Sigrun frowns. "You won't be on your own this time. If you think I'm not ready to crush their nuts into flour if - "

"N-No! No. I don't - I know. I know you'd be right behind me. And Mikkel. Probably with the crowbar he busted my leg with. Lalli as well, and Tuuri would try and strangle them with Reynir's hair, or something. But - I don't want that. I'm sorry. I don't want to ever see their faces again." 

"Right. Right, that's - awesome. I guess that's the smart thing." Sigrun's fist bumps against his shoulder in one of her friendly punches, but it's uncommonly careful all things considered, perhaps the first one Emil got from her that won't bruise. It might be surprised, unsure - also not commonly Sigrun - or apologetic, he can't quite tell. What matters is that it's a nice gesture. She's still trying. 

And pressing on before he can get a word in edgewise. "But doing the smart thing means I don't know how else to help you. I'm better at the hands-on stuff. But you're a good guy, Emil. You got far more than anyone deserves for your pretending. Not that anyone deserves that. Should have grown up in Dalsnes; we'd have gotten your head screwed on right without walking all over you. Maybe I was high on fighting when I said the Viking thing, but I've been thinking a bit about it, and I still think it's true." She pokes the center of his chest. "There's some Viking in there, he just needs to get used to coming out and fighting more often. Bulk up that Viking-ness a bit. I'll get him there." 

That probably means some… interesting lessons from her. "You're sure?" 

"'Course. I'm always right." Sigrun gives him a crooked grin, but one that's so much her that he can't really doubt that she means it. He gives a smile back - tries to, at least. 

"Hey, Emil, how about you don't go back to your crap Cleanser job in spring and lend us a hand to help cleanse around Dalsnes instead? Once we're done with all the fame and fortune stuff, first explorers in the Silent World in 90 years and all that. It'll be kind of a big deal if we get back alive. I won't say we'll all survive, because maybe we won't, but I'll do my damnedest to get us there. And your bunch of jerk-asses won't have anything cool to show for except setting some stuff on fire. Or not even that; it's winter break for them, too."

"Sigrun?" 

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. I-if we don't all get eaten by trolls, I'd like that. Coming to Dalsnes, I mean." His heart is thumping a little too loud in his ears over that. That she wants him to come with her isn't something he'd considered before; he'd never even thought past getting paid, eating better than Mikkel's nightmare gruel and climbing up a few ranks in the military, visiting Lalli in Finland if there's enough money left after paying off some of the debts his family owes. What Sigrun is offering has a feeling of future that none of his plans have had so far. 

And Sigrun would be there.

" _Good man!_ Don't look so scared, that's the sort of stuff I like to hear!" Sigrun's face lights up in a beaming smile. How she has the energy to still do that after all they've done and talked about by now is something of a mystery. She punches him in the shoulder again, this time with enough force that he thinks he hears the bone creak a little, and tries not to wince. This one will definitely bruise. "I've been pretty patient with you on this, right? You didn't make it easy, exactly, especially not today. But I think I could do it a bit longer if it means getting to train you right, put you on a good team. Dagny would like you. Well, she likes everyone most of the time, but you'd be a good fit. She's had a string of rotten luck this summer, lost some men - Ovald was a Cleanser, too, she'll have to find a replacement for him - and she broke both her arms taking down one troll. We called her Dagny No-Arms for a bit. But you'd cheer her right up."

His heart drops again a little. "I wouldn't get to be on your team?" 

Sigrun shakes her head. "Nah. Mine's complete, or was before I left. And it's never really a good idea if there's family on a team, or a Captain sleeping with one of her or his people. It's happened a few times, usually got messy if feelings happened - not the same thing here the way we're working, or I wouldn't be doing this with you, but we do joint hunts sometimes for the big ones. I'd still be around for the trainings and such, too, and we can hang out when we're not in the field or in the infirmary. My bedroom is _awesome_! I'm gonna give you a tour of it, the main thing especially." 

He laughs a bit - much less awkward than the question about the infirmary he was going to ask. "What's the main thing?" 

He'd almost swear Sigrun does a double-take, before she drops down, stretches out on her cloak again and looks up at him through half-lidded eyes. "It's called a _bedroom_ , what do you think? I'm gonna show you how nice the view from the window is? Nah." She grins, shakes her head and licks her lips in a way that makes some of his blood rush south without much other prompting. "I'm gonna take you into my bed and give you a good fucking. At least one. You'll get to see my pillows right up close."

Something in Emil's stomach tightens. "Wait? You'll give me a -- it's the other way around, isn't it?"

"What, because you're the guy? The way I see it, who does the fucking depends on who's doing the most work. But if that's not literal enough for you, I have some toys that can take care of that, too."

Emil swallows. Sigrun is looking at him like _that_ again, and he still feels a little odd for liking it. If anyone else who wasn't Sigrun looked at him that way, he'd probably run the other way. "Cat got your tongue, Emil? Something else you haven't done, eh. Toys?"

They're back where their conversation started, then. It's something of a relief Sigrun seems to consider confession time come and gone, satisfied with what she knows now, enough to judge that she can continue teasing him. Even with the most uncharitable interpretation of his reaction, Emil can't claim that he's unhappy about it. 

"Just - toy horses?" he ventures carefully. "Not sex toys." 

Sigrun just laughs and starts talking about the things she's collected. Some of them sound rather… special... to Emil's ears, and he can't quite say whether that's because they are, or because he has no clue what sex toys are like in general. "... and one that looks just like the real thing, except it's red." 

"Red? Why would you make it red?" 

"Why not? It's my favourite colour! And it's not like there aren't others. I've seen plenty, even one in hot pink, but _that's_ not my colour at all. It clashes with my hair, and nobody wants that when they're trying to be sexy." 

Emil chokes on a laugh. He can almost imagine the hot pink one standing out against the patch of red hair between her legs. It'd be quite a sight to see, but he doesn't say that out loud. It's just that the thought of Sigrun with a cock - no matter the colour - is weirdly alluring. It's not exactly that he minds cocks - at least not theoretically, at least he wouldn't if they happened on his terms. He's even had some dreams, at least as many as he had after watching some of the female recruits at training - not counting Sigrun, who's made a point of elbowing her way into his dreams a pretty unfair number of times. Mostly naked, and mostly he's found himself man-handled - or rather, Sigrun-handled - his back against some crumbling wall or other, her hands pinning his own above his head, her leg between his thighs, and she's about to devour him. But he's had similar dreams about Lalli of all people, and some of the less terrible and more attractive guys at the Academy - communal showers meant very few chances to hide, for anyone - and, well. He's not opposed to the idea.

"Happy thoughts there, Emil?" 

"Dreams. I mean, yeah. Happy dreams, though."

Sigrun's grin turns predatory again. It's done that a few times now, and it always sends a jolt right through him. Sometimes there's that added rush of bravery. "I don't think you mean ice cream and pony rides, pretty boy. Wanna tell?"

"Not _pony_ rides, no." For all the bravery, his face grows hot. "More like… me rides." 

"So that's just what I was talking about, yeah? You'd like my cock. We're gonna have to try that when you're coming with me." She reaches over to box his shoulder, smack on the same place she's hit before. Emil tries not to wince, again. 

"So. Think we have some time for another go before Twig finds us? Because it looks like you're feeling like it." 

"Lalli. His name's Lalli. I don't think he'd appreciate being called that all the time - if he could understand you, anyway. But… I don't know. I'd like to? I've been thinking - he has to find us first, and then they'll need to dig us out, and the digging - that's not a good idea in the dark, is it? If there are trolls around. So we'd have until morning. At least - do you think he'll see us?" He gestures at the rubble.

Sigrun shrugs. "Dunno. No? Probably not. That looks like it's all solid and collapsed in on itself," she says after a brief look and comments on his correction about Lalli with something like a grunt. "And you know whom I meant, there's only one Twig on the team. But he won't find us at all if we let the fire go out any more than this, he'll find some us-icicles. Do your job, Emil." She elbows him in the ribs, and looking up he notices how comfortably dark the room has gone. There still is a bit of fire-glow in Sigrun's hair, and a line of light outlining her cheekbone in a way that makes him want to keep it as it is. 

But he'd like to be found without freezing first, too. And - Captain's orders. 

He complies with a low grumble, pads over to the fireplace on bare feet, and starts picking out enough splintered wood from the rubble, first smaller pieces and then larger, stoking the embers carefully with the poker and burying the smouldering piece of old curtain Sigrun had tossed him for cleaning up, earlier. A spurt from his flame-thrower gets the fire going bright again, and he hears, or thinks he hears, Sigrun's murmur of appreciation behind him. 

"That light does wonders for you, you know that? Looks like you picked the right job to look hot while you do it, too." 

He's not sure whether he should run a hand through his hair and preen - a little bit - he knows he's pretty if nothing else, and he knows she likes that - or groan at Sigrun's horrid, terrible and no-shame use of puns, when she sounds all of appreciative, self-satisfied, and a little like she's purring. 

And when he catches on to her meaning, it's Emil's face that goes hot. It must be the umpteenth time that evening; apparently getting naked with Sigrun is not a free pass out of awkwardness, even if it's the good and slightly flattered kind of it. He pushes some hair into place and hears her laugh under her breath. 

"Uh… thanks? Do you really find me... " he won't pick up her pun. He _won't_. "...ho- uh- ndsome?" 

"Houndsome? Well, yeah. You're at least as much a puppy as Freckles is, but you're a different breed. Cocker Spaniel? Yeah, I think. Cocker Spaniel fits you. Pretty golden frou-frou dog and still useful for hunting. And a fitting name!"

It takes him a moment, but _kuk_ is one of those words that's probably almost the same almost everywhere, even in the Old-World languages. It's a horrible name for a dog breed, and what Sigrun is doing with it is even worse. By now he's actively cringing, and can't keep the whine out of his voice.

"Sigrun, _stop_? Please?" 

There's a sound like Sigrun slumping down, and then she starts laughing for real. It's the first time, he thinks, that she's going for full-blown laughter, not a chuckle or the 'hah!' laughter that she's done plenty of times before, and it's kind of heart-warming. When she drops her act, she's got a nice laugh, snorting through her nose and all. His parents would be scandalized, but it's a _really_ nice laugh, the kind that makes him want to laugh along. 

"Sigrunnnnn..."

"It was a compliment!" 

"You're making fun of me!" 

_"Compliment!"_

"Where's the compliment in making fun of me?" 

"Hey! You want to watch that mouth of yours before it talks any more stupid!" Sigrun's grumpiness lacks its usual bite when she's still sort-of laughing, Emil thinks with a smile when he stretches out on his coat again - only to find Sigrun's shadow falling over him and her arms coming down on either side of his head so there's no way to get away. 

"Or maybe I should do the watching your mouth. Right up close. Make you speechless a bit." 

Not that he minds so much when she straddles him and her hips push down and bump against his own. It just gets harder holding on to normal thinking when her weight settles there without doing much anything for the moment, knowing Sigrun won't stay still for very long, if at all. 

Emil's mouth falls open just trying to breathe, and he can sense how her gloating becomes even more pronounced, even before she nuzzles his cheek and bites his earlobe with a sharp little nip, and mutters "Is it working? I think it's working," in his ear.

She's not wrong. It's working. It's taking him right back to the airfield and the first time, too. And he hates to interrupt, hates to gather his thoughts and try to pull himself out of the haze that's settling on his thoughts. Someone like Sigrun wants him. _Sigrun_ wants him, and it isn't to mess with him. At least not in a mean way. It's straightforward as can be. 

He needs a moment to let that settle. "Sigrun? Can you… get off me?"

Sigrun tilts her head at him, and then leans down to quickly peck his lips. She doesn't always do the kill-kissing, after all, and takes Emil's jaw in hand for a quick caress, her fingers a comfortable pressure into his skin before she moves away and sits on her coat leaning toward him ever so slightly. "Sure. You're okay?" 

"Y-yeah. Just - give me a second? I'm - you _know_ I'm new at this!" 

"And you're starting to stand up for yourself. That's good. You can't just let people walk all over you. Or sit on you - not if you don't want them to, at least." 

"I-I… I want _you_ to. Just… slowly?" 

She smirks. "We can do slowly. It's nice sometimes, especially while you're new to stuff. Lets you figure things out, and each other. I guess it's both with you, more or less." She sounds pleased, though, and breathing gets a little easier even though he's half-hard and it feels awkward, neither here nor there. Sigrun doesn't really seem to care, and her hand is back, resting on his hip, fingers curling possessively, like she can't wait to get on with the figuring-out. "So - anything you want to do, other than taking it slow? We can take our time with all sorts of stuff." 

He swallows, hard. Sigrun's tone is verging on that purr again, and if she keeps it up, there won't be a lot of stuff left to do with him because it'll finish him with barely any other help from her. When he beckons to her, she comes back and shifts her weight down, his legs open for her, and she settles between them, for the moment flush against his body. 

It's nothing short of torture of the best kind, and he wants all of it. 

"Okay?" 

It's a bit hard to believe that she's actually asking what he wants, but she's definitely looking at him like she's expecting an answer. "Okay." He takes a deep breath and composes himself over the stuttering that threatens to overwhelm him again. This is Sigrun he's talking to. He should be past the awkwardness. He isn't quite. "I want to know - I'd _like to know_ what it's like? I think if I know what it's like if it happens how it's supposed to be, maybe I might feel better about it. If you like? You said 'ew' before."

Her hand curls over his hip again. "It? Ah - that wasn't about the thing itself, just about the way it happened to you. Don't take stuff so personally all the time. I wouldn't be here if you were disgusting in some way. So, let's make you some better memories, eh? Slowly. And remember, I'll stop if you want me to, you just gotta tell." 

He has to laugh, a little hoarsely, about the gleam in Sigrun's eyes as she looks at him, but even so Emil's mouth feels very dry. With the way his heart is racing there's no denying that he's nervous. Not quite the same way that troll hunts with Sigrun make him feel, but it's a world beyond that roiling, nauseous, numb resentment he'd shut up inside himself when he'd been slipping on his knees on the shower floor tiles. 

"Well? You sure about this? I haven't given head in a bit, at least not to a guy, but I guess you won't be able to tell if I'm getting rusty in that department. It's not something that you really forget, muscle memory and all that. But really, if you're having the summer I've had you're just glad that you can grab sleep, not waste a lot of time getting yourself more exhausted, that'd be dumb. The quick stuff still happens sometimes, but the rest is what winter is for - it's nice to have someone warm in my bed when it's cold enough out to freeze my balls solid."

"Is it… actually still called that with two women?" The idea had never quite crossed his mind, but looking at Sigrun it feels like it makes perfect sense. It's so - her. It makes sense. He wonders if she notices. She probably does; there's two fingers sliding under his chin and flicking his mouth closed.

Sigrun grins, looking pleased and a little smug. "What's called what when you're done gaping - giving head? I dunno, but you got what I was trying to say, so who cares? Even better, I'm about to do it to you. Ready?"

Emil nods and draws in a heavy breath. He leans up and forward, following the guidance of Sigrun's hand again cupping his jaw with gentle pressure, just the way he thinks he can handle. That she knows that sort of thing, it's heady, almost more than the kiss itself when it happens. 

"Slow and proper now, soldier," Sigrun mouths against his lips. 

She's incredible at kissing, Emil thinks. Definitely better than their housekeeper's son, who'd almost managed to make him think something as nice as kissing wasn't worth the while at all. Not that he hadn't had better luck later, with what little luck he had, but neither Greta from public school (who'd offered to help him study to catch up with the class) or her brother Anton (whom he'd really tried to meet) had been anywhere as good as Sigrun when she's putting effort into the kissing and doesn't let adrenaline get the better of her, as after the giant and after the ceiling coming down a step behind them.

He's going to make an idiot out of himself. 

Sigrun blinks and frees the hand she's tangled in his hair at the back of his head when he rocks away from her. "Steady there. Anything wrong?"

Mumble. Sigh. She's waiting for an answer. "Am I doing okay, Sigrun? Honestly?" It's the closest he can get to admitting what's in his head. Saying it outright will make him look like an idiot even if he isn't one.

To his relief, Sigrun seems amused rather than annoyed with him. "Nerves, huh? But - yeah. You need a bit of practice, but nothing you have to be ashamed of, I said that the first time. It's kinda cute how eager you are. So, are you coming back here? I can't wait to see you turn into butter in my mouth." 

He's pretty sure that that's not quite how the saying goes but - it sounds promising. She still wants this. Him. She wants him. That's all it takes for him to - well, react. 

He gathers up his resolve and leans in again, and this time Sigrun lets him come to her. One hand on his cheek that he leans into as they kiss again, the other back in his hair, fingertips tousling. He doesn't know where to put his own hands, and lets them hang a little awkwardly at his sides, running his fingers through the dust and grit covering the floor, until Sigrun shuffles him around. She closes the gap between their bodies and Emil's arms go around her, over her shoulders and the scar there, and when Sigrun's mouth slides from his lips over his jaw and down his throat, that's the sensation his world narrows to. Her lips, her tongue, her breath warming the cooling wet trail she's leaving, irregular little puffs when she murmurs praise as he moans or his throat works compulsively against her, the pressure of her fingers against his windpipe on the same downward trail. 

They're Sigrun's fingers, he reminds himself and tilts his head forward until his nose is in her hair, the smell of dust and the cheap disinfectant soap his uncle managed to squeeze from the budget. He's with Sigrun, not kneeling before Rikard closing both hands around his neck while he's using his mouth until Emil is that close to passing out. 

He can still breathe. Just barely, but it's for all the right reasons. The reasons are all Sigrun, and he reaches for her again, his fingers stuttering against her biceps, but she shifts and his hand slips down to touch her breast. "Go on, touch. I'm doing this for you, but I want a little something out of it, too."

Emil complies, fumbling for a moment before he runs his fingers over the weak red marks that are left of his bites from earlier, and Sigrun draws in a hissing breath. "That's good, yeah. You can be a little bit rough, it's okay, I like that. Use your fingernails." He does, rasping down the broad side over her skin, and it's endlessly fascinating how quickly her pale skin reddens and rises into a set of welts; he touches his open mouth to them next and slips his tongue over the marks. Sigrun chuckles under her breath and he does it again, then draws back, cups his hand around her breast so he feels the softness and weight of it, and runs the nail of his thumb over her nipple. 

"Mmm." In response, her lips close over the hollow at the base of his throat, and Emil's head tips back. He can feel her lips curve up against his skin. "Look at you, you're already melting," she says, ever so slightly breathless as she pushes back against his fingers. " _Man_ , you're beautiful when you do that. I'd kill a hundred trolls to have your eyelashes, you know that, Emil?"

There's something - the cadence of her voice, maybe, the way she's enjoying this at least as much as he is, just from watching him, that goes from his head straight into his groin, and he's been hard for a long enough time, he's not sure he's going to last very long once she gets started in earnest. 

"How many _did_ you kill?" He's gasping and just barely away from shuddering out the words, while she's still got a hold on herself, probably not nearly as far along as he is. But he - he wants to see her squirm with some of his need as well, rolls his fingers over her nipple again, and nearly loses that thread of thought when she moans against his skin. It's half a laugh, and it's the worst and best sound at once that he's heard in his life so far.

Sigrun nips at his collarbone before replying, and now there is a note of happy unsteadiness in her voice that's making Emil draw in a breath that's heavier than it probably needs to be. She grins up at him. "Me myself, I'm at seventy-six. Solo troll kills, that is - there's plenty more that involve teamwork, and so many more beast grosslings that I've actually lost count." 

Emil _knows_ he should not find it as intriguing as he does, but by now he's no longer sure whether it is a blush that is making the heat rise into his cheeks, or something that Sigrun does with her mouth while she's trailing further downward - or both. It's probably both. She's incredible, at any rate, and when she brings her lips to the cusp of his hip and a few strands of her hair tickle over his cock, Emil's hands freeze on her shoulders only when he's already pushed her down halfway. He groans. 

Sigrun laughs and rolls her shoulders against his fingernails so they dig in for real and leave red crescents before he manages to tell his brain to move his hands away. He's about to apologize, somewhere in the part of mind that can still form words, when Sigrun looks up at him, and her eyes have gone wide and dark. He hasn't seen them that way yet, and if her laugh was the worst sound he's ever heard, then the look she's giving him is the worst thing he's ever seen. 

A strong shove against the center of his chest, and Emil's sight tilts to the ceiling. He finds himself on his back and his teeth click shut. His hair falls over his face; it must be the worst mess from her hands in it. The zipper of Sigrun's coat starts digging into his back, but at the moment he doesn't care, not when Sigrun moves into sight again and looks at him _that way_. 

And to be honest, he's relishing the messy hair. It's Sigrun's mark on him. 

"Staying power. I think that's gonna be a problem, you're leaking like there's no tomorrow, so… tell me if you want my little trick again to keep you up and going?"

Emil considers for a moment, but his brain's mostly running empty. And who can blame him, when here's Sigrun kneeling before him wetting her lips and licking long stripes down her palms, and her tongue wraps around her thumb just so, just to mess with him?

Eventually he just shakes his head, wipes his hair out of his eyes and - waits? He's not sure what to do, until Sigrun palms him, slick and wonderful, and grins up at him like she's been given a treat. "No? Okay. And you're sure you can take this without having another self-pity moment? I don't want to be sitting here with your junk in my mouth if that's what's coming, so - you know the drill. Talk." 

He knows that on some level her flippancy should bother him, maybe, but there's her hand, stilled on his shaft as her thumb goes trailing circles across his tip around and through the fluid and slicking him more, and it's making it hard to think anything at all, except for the vague gist of her question, and he'd probably be more upset if - "Y-yeah. No? I think. It's good. Just - don't stop. Please?" 

"That's _right_ , say please. Please, Captain."

He doesn't even question. He needs. "Please. Please, _Captain_." His words are breathy and barely-there, but Sigrun's satisfied noise and bright-eyed, heavy-lidded look makes it worth it. 

"That's a good soldier. You've earned this. Let's see..."

Finally, finally, she dips her head. 

Emil holds his breath when her lips close over the head of his cock and she sucks lightly. Her mouth, tongue, pressure, it's almost too much going over slick patches and dry skin, the tickle of hair along his thigh. Sigrun makes a noise that's not quite a moan low in her throat that vibrates through his entire lower half, and he can feel sweat breaking out on his face; a drop is rolling down his cheek across his heated skin. He must look - debauched. Utterly so, as that one time he'd stolen time for himself in front of Siv's full-length mirror when he was alone in their house during a visit. Maybe more. 

He'd liked it. And he likes thinking how he looks while Sigrun is shamelessly working on him, allows him a thrust or two before her forearm pins his hips down. Her eyes have slipped closed, her hands are moving up and down on him, there's the softness of her tongue along the underside of his shaft, the firmness of her lips following, and the only thing that would make this more perfect - 

"Sigrun." His hand goes into her hair, tugs for her attention. "Can… can you look at me? While - " He gestures. No one who'd hate doing what she does would look the way she does, like a cat lapping at cream, but he wants to be sure, and he wants her eyes on him. She moves up his cock again, sucks in a breath the moment she lets it slip from between her lips. They're so red and gleaming wet, he can't help reaching out and touching. "Wow…" 

She presses a kiss to his fingers, flicks them with her tongue, smiles. "Look at you? I can do that." 

And she does. Sigrun moves up to kiss his face, it lands somewhere on his cheekbone when he turns his head to catch a real kiss. He gets that one, too, along some more of her murmuring, and a taste that must be his own in her mouth. 

"Apple cheeks. I should call you that sometime, because damn me if you don't have more than just two of those. Hmm, and you blush so nicely, it's a real treat to see."

"Sigrun, making fun of me isn't sexy…" Except it is, because she sounds so genuine and there's such _delight_ on her face when she looks at him, he can't help feeling he's blushing another three shades deeper.

"Not making fun, you're so cute it's making me all flustery. Prettiest little Viking I've ever seen, and when you're all grown up half the people in Dalsnes will be getting into fights over you. But you're mine, isn't that right? I found you. My prettiest little Viking." 

Emil groans, and he just knows his protest is going to be feeble as anything. " _Yours_ … but I'm… not little. 'M an adult…" 

"Mmm. Adult, yeah, or I wouldn't be here with you - not like this, anyway. But you still have some growing to do, and I can't wait to see that." She grins. "I better start training for when that happens and you go from cute to drop-dead gorgeous, because I'll probably have to punch someone or other over you myself. You know, one of my cousins showed me some old-world magazines once - he and his guy kinda collect them - and all the fashion model men in those were from Sweden. I bet you'd have been a model man in the old world." 

While Sigrun talks, her hand is sneaking down between their bodies, and she starts fondling him again. Emil can't swallow the moans that want out, not when she glides her hand down his cock and even fondles his balls. It feels - he doesn't have words, not really. Words are harder than he is. 

"M-maybe? I don't know?" 

"Yeah, you'd have been. The world was a lot bigger then, there were lots of other countries they could have picked from, but they'd still pick you. I bet there's something in your water. But I guess I better get back to work before I finish you with talking like this, eh?"

And just like that, she's back down and getting comfortable, and he's not prepared for what she does next. Her hand is on his arm and nudging it toward her head; he curls his fingers in her hair. So far so good. She bumps her head back against his hand and gives him an approving look while there's the feeling of her lips again pressing against his base, and she says, "You can pull my hair," against him, and that's already bad enough. Next she looks up at him, meets his eyes --- and then slowly, deliberately, swallows him down, lets him slide over her tongue as she tests his weight and girth, deeper past the soft back of her mouth, until the point of her nose brushes the trail of blond hair running up to his navel, she fuzzes her fingers through it, and Emil's tip hits the back of her throat. 

She goes still, her throat works around him with the effort of holding him in, and it's ever so -- well, things start becoming a little hazy for him then.

Emil falls back, bumps his head against a piece of rubble, and doesn't care about the thrum of pain in rhythm with the rest of his body, he just moans, deep and low and long. Sigrun has the godsdamned nerve to chuckle around him before she draws back up, and her grin becomes broad and triumphant on swollen lips as she watches him fray apart. 

All Emil can do is try and hold himself just a little longer against the tension and tightness that's definitely making itself known now in a way he can't do much about anymore - he won't be long now, no way he can last through much more of Sigrun's treatment or the wetness on his cock cooling before her warm mouth comes back and she takes him in deep again. 

"Yep, still can do it." Sigrun beams when she draws back the second time, and she sounds so proud of herself Emil has to laugh as well. "Consider it a special treat, I won't be doing that one often." She flicks her tongue down his length, coughs a little surreptitiously, wipes the back of her hand over the spit trails on her chin and blinks her eyes some, but it seems to be okay. "And worth it, seeing you come undone this way. The noises you make, damn. I'm going to have to say hi to my hand as well after this. And third time's the charm for you, I guess?" 

It is. It really is. 

Sigrun swallows him a third time; he can only do so much to keep his hips from bucking up and barely manages it. He can hardly keep his hands still. His right flies to her shoulder, fists into the strands of her hair and holds on until Sigrun comes up again and squints before the corner of her mouth quirks in another grin. Her voice is back to that purr he loves so much, the one that goes right through him, and the fire, dimming again, sets her hair glowing and spills light across her throat and along the curve of her breasts. 

She looks straight at him. 

"Come on now, for me, except if you want to insult my talent? This is an _order_ , soldier." 

It's for nothing if not for Sigrun, due to Sigrun, because of Sigrun. There's no order he'd rather follow.

He lets go and release sweeps through him head to toe. Breathing? He's not sure how that still works, not when his muscles set on fire and then turn into butter - just as Sigrun told him, and he can't help a burn of heavy satisfaction settling into him after his pleasure bursts and fades, leaving him weak, breathless, and somehow warm and glowy. The thundering of his heart slowly ebbs back into a normal rhythm. 

Sigrun is sitting cross-legged between his legs when he's able to focus again, and her hands are busy at work with herself already. Her head is tilted and her eyes are still on him. Emil wets his lips and tries to form a coherent thought, but they're still slippery and don't cooperate. 

Instead he just stares. "Uhm..."

"Your toes curl when you come, that's so cute." She slips a finger home, grinds down against the heel of her hand, and gasps. "So, feeling any better about blowjobs now?" 

Emil blinks. The reason for her offer - or, his request - had taken flight for a while, at least while Sigrun had kept him busy; it comes back with a strange lurch through his stomach that makes him sure that it's not over for good, but - she did what she promised. 

"Better… yeah, a bit. It'll - I'll - there's this now. Not just the showers." 

Sigrun continues touching herself, unperturbed by the way Emil can't turn his eyes away even though there's a comfortable bone-tiredness setting in now and all he wants to do is clean the mess he made off his stomach, get dressed, and sleep some. "Good. All worth it, then. It's a pity we don't even have a shower in our crap tank, though. I'd show you what fun they can be when they're not a disgusting swamp with disgusting people in." 

"Maybe… do you have showers in Dalsnes?" Emil ventures, and stifles an enormous yawn. "Maybe if - when I come with you?" 

"Sure we do. They don't _always_ work, but most of the time they do. I can give you a tour of them, too, and ah - _dritt_ , here I -" Sigrun's mouth falls open and she shudders around the hand she's been stroking herself with. It's over quickly and quietly, for her standards, and Emil guesses that two rounds are making her almost as worn-out as he is, if the high blush on her cheeks and her glazed eyes are any indication. "- go." 

"Can we… can we get some rest?" he ventures after a while. There are stars visible through the hole in the ceiling. "Lalli must be out and about by now, and if he finds us a way through after all, it's probably best if we don't look like we've - " 

"- been screwing around all evening? Yeah. Yeah, okay, you're right. Come on, dress up." Sigrun yawns as well, and begins reaching for the clothes scattered around her, while Emil picks himself up from the floor to get cleaned up. 

At the moment, as far as he's concerned, what happened in Cleanser training can stay right there.

**Author's Note:**

> Aside from Ju herself, for being a terrible enabler for the month and a half this monster took me to finish and coming up with Sigrun's apple tree tattoo, I'd like to thank the other SSSSinners from her streams (♥!) for their help, encouragement and pre-reading, especially Folie for letting this story borrow Sigrun's red dildo from [Another Session](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5138753), and whoever came up with the Cleanser Training idea originally, and Anna and Minutia for their betaing expertise. :D


End file.
